Hi everyone, I'm new in the forum and I'm starting in these days to use SAM to simulate parabolic trough IPH systems.
I'm having troubles in understanding why the performance of a plant is that much affected by the configuration of the system, in terms of number of loops and number of assemblies per loop. Here is an example, I have simulated the same plant (same location, receivers, collector typology, number of collectors and ,therefore, same aperture area and nominal power of 3MWt) in 3 different configurations:
- 1 loop, 12 assemblies/loop
- 2 loops, 6 assemblies/loop
- 3 loops, 4 assemblies/loop
In the figure below there is a summary of the results.
Shouldn't the Field thermal power incident be the same in the 3 cases? Looking at the results, it's like SAM is multiplying this value by the number of loops in the field, while I was expecting it depended only by the field aperture area (which is the same in the 3 simulations).
Can anyone help me in solving this doubt? Attached you can find the project file I used (modifying only the number of SCA/HCE assemblies per loop).
Thanks in advance!
Tommaso Tampucci